2015 Review
Arizona threw out the best offense in franchise history last season, averaging over 30 points per game while finishing first in total offense. Carson Palmer finished third in quarterback rating, David Johnson tallied over 1,000 total yards on just 161 touches. Meanwhile, both Larry Fitzgerald and John Brown put up over 1,000 receiving yards.
This helped Arizona to the NFC Championship game where it eventually lost to the Carolina Panthers in a game that saw Palmer turn the ball over six times. Despite that ugly ending to the 2015 season, the Cardinals enter this year with high expectations. Here's a look at the team from a fantasy perspective below.
Quarterback: Carson Palmer
Palmer not only finished last season as the fifth-best fantasy quarterback, his fantasy consistency ranked first among signal callers, tallying 15-plus points 88 percent of the time he took to the field.
None of this should change in 2016, especially with second-year running back David Johnson expected to take on a larger role. Johnson averaged over five yards per touch, giving Palmer the necessary help on offense to beat defenses over the top.
As of right now, Palmer's ADP stands seventh among quarterbacks and towards the end of the sixth round. With what we saw last season, and looking at the Cardinals' vast amount of weapons, there's no reason to believe he shouldn't exceed those expectations a great deal in 2016.
Running Back: David Johnson, Chris Johnson, Andre Ellington
If David Johnson finds his way to 250-plus touches as a sophomore, he will surely finish as a top-five fantasy running back. In fact, if he had hit that total as a rookie, the small-school product would have put up well over 1,500 total yards and 16-plus touchdowns. As it is, Johnson finished as the ninth-best fantasy running back while attempting just 125 carries. That's absolutely absurd.
Johnson's preseason ADP tells us a story of a fantasy community that's expecting a whole heck of a lot from him. He's currently the seventh overall player off the board (fourth running back). The fact of the matter here, especially in PPR leagues, is that his ceiling is much higher than that. This is only magnified by the four-game suspension Le'Veon Bell received for violating the league's substance abuse policy.
If the younger Johnson gets the touches most expect, Chris Johnson will be the running back to take a major hit here. Despite putting up 202 touches and nearly 900 yards of offense, Johnson was not a fantasy relevant player in standard leagues, finishing as the 43rd-best fantasy running back. With an expected downtick in touches, he's nothing more than a late-round bench or waiver wire option.
Interestingly, Andre Ellington finds himself in a different situation. After missing 10 games over the past two seasons and showing himself to be injury plagued, the former Clemson standout will be tasked with lining out wide more in 2016. This will obviously limit his ability on the ground behind the Johnson "brothers."
Though, it could help him prove to be a solid PPR force. He's a player to keep an eye on early in the season. If Ellington somehow fills the role we saw from Theo Riddick in Detroit last year, he'll become a decent waiver add in PPR-heavy leagues.
Wide Receiver: Larry Fitzgerald, John Brown
We're going to project Fitzgerald to take a step back this upcoming season. He caught a ridiculous 75 percent of the balls thrown in his direction last year, finishing fourth among receivers in catches. This allowed Fitzgerald to finish as the ninth-best fantasy receiver. The issue here is age (and competition for touches). First off, John Brown will see an uptick in targets. Secondly, the likes of J.J. Nelson and Jaron Brown have proven themselves worthy of play.
In no way are we saying Fitzgerald, even at his advanced age, will somehow fall off the cliff. We're not looking at Andre Johnson or Reggie Wayne type regression here. Instead, the future Hall of Famer should be looking at decent mid-tier WR2 production.
On the other hand, John Brown is one of the highest-upside fantasy receivers heading into the 2016 season. Here's a guy that finished as a bottom-end WR2 in standard 12-team leagues. The primary issue here last season was consistency. Brown put up 39 percent of his fantasy production in just four games. With more opportunities and after finding his groove with Palmer in 2015, we should be looking at top-12 production this season.
Tight End: Darren Fells, Troy Niklas
Nothing to see here. Cardinals tight ends were targeted a total of 64 times last season — a number that represented less than nine individual tight ends racked up in terms of catches. With all the playmakers Arizona has on offense, there's no real reason to believe this is going to change.